Moscow

St. Basil’s. Red Square is full of tourists, as are surrounding streets. The atmosphere is similar to tourist venues in Athens, Budapest, Split, Berlin. People take selfies in front of the internationally recognized backdrops.

Something which is funny to me is that St. Basil’s is often shown in American graphics to represent the Kremlin, and it’s not the Kremlin at all.

Red Square. St. Basil’s to the left, Kremlin to the right.

First statue of Marx I’ve seen since Berlin. The caption reads „Proletariat of all countries, unite!“ This seems like such straightforward and obvious advice to me, and yet I realize that most, perhaps all of the Americans I know don’t identify themselves as proletarian and indeed reject the term itself. I’ve identified my occupation as „worker“ on 1040s for 40 years. All I have for earning power is my labor. This is true for the vast majority of Americans, many of whom have more debt than assets, yet Americans cling to the notion they belong to a „middle class“ even while both income and wealth in the United States bifurcate into the wealthy and the rest of us, leaving no meaningful third class to be a part of.

Hotel Sovietsky

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